Doesn't it make sense how she treats him compared to the reverse? From her perspective, she hired a detective, only for him to do who knows what, ramble on about made up stuff, while she solves everything. From his perspective, while he's doung his job, his client seems to be getting more unwell in this place, coupled with what he is learning about it and how it might be adding to her distress. So yeah, makes sense that he's understanding and she's annoyed.
@bruhmodeactive3211 True, but does believing in the cult stuff equate to the belief in the supernatural? Plus, it does seem like she kinda softenes closer to end, suggesting he rests a bit in one of their interactions.
You know what would be cool? If after completing both Edward's and Emily's routes you unlock a third route where they are both transfixed by the painting and they have to work together.
I almost kinda wish the split was like, a full one. Instead of an alternative view of the same events, have them be full on different sides of the happenings. One Character focuses on Jeremy and The Dark Man, and the Other character focuses on the cult and the tree.
@@lewislewis3531 Wrong. It's just the lazyness of developers in our current Era, same mistake happened in the Remake of Resident Evil 2. The original Alone in the Dark in 1992 had a budget of 40.000 US dollars. The booking price for David Harbour(actor of Carnby in this game) is between 75,000 to149,999 US dollars. Even with inflation(40.000 US dollars today would be 88,474.98 US dollars), they paid more for David Harbour, than the original Alone in the Dark had cost in it's entirety and this is all they could produce?
@roberthartburg266 It's strange, Alone in the Dark is such a simple premise to nail. But the last good game in the series was, what, The New Nightmare? Was that '99, 2000? Really, how hard is it to fill a mansion with Lovecraftian horrors, puzzles and a cult? It writes itself!
I do like that the Detective feels like the kind of person who would make their career being a snoop and having an overriding sense of curiosity driving them.
I get the sneaking suspicion that the game underwent significant redesigns to turn Emily from a passive companion to a playable character. It would explain why several scenes were basically identical, and only the ones revolving around their personal issues remained as is. And several plot points got lost in the transition, some of which the devs never could get back to.
@@gimmeurshibaquik7 it might be because the game turned into a franchise, and during the course of that franchise, anyone who got their hands on the franchise focused super hard on Edward and completely dropped Emily. This might be the first game Emily was even thought about since the original, the incidental scenes might be because half way through development they had to remind themselves that in the original Emily was playable too.
I get the other vibe--like Emily was originally intended to be the only playable character--confronting her family history with Gnarly while Edward discovered the Shubby cult off-screen. Then they added an alternate "Edward Version" of events (presumably because he's the more well-known AitD Protagonist) and the expertise they developed over the course of working on Emily's version let them make better Spooky Cutscenes.
33:45 "Ruth is here tag teaming her liver and her lungs" Ben....it's lines like this that make me come back to your channel reviews time and time again - perfection!
Okay, that hand grabbing the book was somehow one of the most terrifying things I’ve seen in a long while. My screen brightness is turned down, so I didn’t realize what it was until the fingers folded over the page and my heart stopped dead in my chest.
Alone in the dark goes balls deep into the cthulhu mythos and it resonates only if u know what things like Nyarlathotep or Goat Mother, it can confuse other players. Tho i think this isn't a bad thing since some games should just not be for every audience. Personally i enjoy the weirdness of the story. Derceto was basically a battleground for Lovecraftian gods. Good thing his cat wasn't the final boss tho :^)
Hastur also made an appearance, not by name but behind the scenes. Cassandra, an author working on a Script. Definitely the a King in Yellow. I also agree, I found it weird that he didn't took a small dive into lovecraftian lore. The bigger picture that Nyarlathotep made the ritual for Shub'Niggurath happen is my current theory, seeing how he wants to bring the other gods into existence.
it make sense they took a deeper dive only the first alone in the dark game used allot of lovecraft writings into the including meantioning cathulu so its no suprise they also used it in the remake@@chron874
@chron874 isn't Nyarly's whole thing is that he is typically a chaos factor that just wants to screw intelligent beings over, but he is still ultimately subservient to Yog Sothoth and Shub-Niggurath? If Shubby wants to manifest on Earth and she wants him to help her, he's kinda obligated to do so no matter what and has to put aside his typical flavor of trolling humanity with atrocities to focus on what she wants, so it makes perfect sense why he is here and working for her.
@@swirekster he absolutely does, making people's lives miserable while manipulating his way into positions of power like pharaohood is his favorite pastime, but when his uncle and aunt-in-law come knocking he has to actually work on stuff. Also, something I just realized is that the final boss is definitely meant to be The Dark Young, which is a much better explanation than it being a true Manifestation of Shubby. The ritual in the endgame shares a lot of the beats with the ritual used to summon the Dark Young.
I appreciate how each character has a unique personality. Edward is seen as an adversary by the dark man, influencing the others' more kinder interactions with him. Emily is perceived as a threat by the mother, creating a stronger connection, which is why the cult were more aggressive towards her, while the dark man appeared to be more passive in his approach. while yes it needs some polishing, it clearly is impressive
Everytime Ben mentions his fear of deep waters, I smile waiting for the day that a Subnautica video will come out soon. But as always, high quality stuff.
I find it interesting that in the game they mention both Nyarlathotep and Shub-Niggurath from Lovecraft's works. Giving us a potential answer where all the supernatural elements came from.
Not just potential, if you know ANY Cthulhu mythos, once those names come up, all of it begins to make sense. You're standing on a battleground for the Outer Gods.
Also the game is very self-aware of being reimagination of the oryginal, listen to the Jeremy at 51:37, 'Frédérick needed me to die'. He is actually talking about the director of alone in the dark from 1992, Frédérick Raynal. 'it's not how story is supposed to go'. There are more hints through the game for that too, i think there is another layer to what is happening in this game other than 'it's a hint'. If it is a hint, it is very VERY big hint. Edit: Also for the phone call at 53:43, It's actually the Jacob calling u i think, it's how the Jeremy sees himself, a martyr trapped forever in the frozen, alien land. That's why when u stab him in the eye, you lobotomise Jeremy, In cthulhu universe the victim is doomed to madness and suicide after becoming aware of the nightmares of the universe, you can't just go back to your normal life knowing. The only way is to numb yourself enough...
That's so cool about the original director. I also noticed a nod to "The new nightmare" I believe it was a letter or a telegram in Carnby's office that was sent by "Obed Morton "
The scariest part of this game is the lack of Magnificent Moustache on the main character. Also very good review of the game and using clips without commentary or altering them helps add to your points about them. This is a great example on reviewing make your point, show the point to confirm it but also add stripulations that it wont always be just that
Agreed the lack of moustache is so tragic. Lowkey kinda tired of grizzled looking male main characters in cakes looking more or less the same. Having a magnificent moustache would’ve been a lovely addition.
I do like how Jeremy kinda looked like the Camby from the original game with how he's dressed and his scenes taking the most inspiration from the original game.
i can understand some of emilys behavior being a lot more cold in edwards story, especially the attic scene, because from her perspective this is a person she hired for help/protection and hes acting strange. its really irritating though that the writing has her say basically nothing about whats going on yet act like youre ignoring her. it would have been nice to see her be more compassionate after seeing the detective get so roughed up later on, rather than just being like 'uh are you okay? take it easy, bye.' and have her say more than just how the place makes people crazy. it woulda been interesting if she doubted the detective while believing the culty stuff was going on because shes too focused on her more grounded research, and have that mirrored with the detective not listening to what she has to say not bc hes ignoring her but hes too caught up in the supernatural side of stuff to really focus on what the information she has. idk. it seems really good, but falls a bit too short in some aspects!
I still have a soft spot for it, its puzzle system and the most realistic inventory ever. Yeah you have just enough pockets, yeah it is cumbersome to rummage through them, YEAH DUCTTAPE IS AMAZING. And fire... Man, how awesome was their fire system.
That second monster around the corner suprise was so good. Like, thats the exact setup for a combat tutorial. I expected a text box to tell you what button to press to aim, not a suprise attack.
I like how you can still spot the typical Unreal Engine stutters in the video as well, at first I thought you were lucky or cutting the footage where stuttering did occur, but I still managed to spot some
I think given the context of Grace having a greedy, abusive mother...that may be why she is abusive to Ms. Hartman and not Carnby. It's a sort of extension of how she loves her father but not her mother...in her warped mind, she's projecting them onto Carnby and Hartman.
I love the detail that Edward's and Emily's clothing is messed up and often bloody. Still, neither acknowledges it when they interact which could've further pushed this idea that everything was just in their head, which it kinda is but also not, so it just makes things more confusing for us to understand if anything they go through is real. This also marks the second game featuring H.P. Lovecraft's deity Shub-Niggurath as an antagonist I've seen and I wasn't expecting it, points on your game. Good job.
"I remember you giving me little to no information." I think that's the thing. Something was fucking with the PC's perception. So we weren't fully hearing her. And likewise, she couldn't fully hear us. Likewise, I feel like the changes are that Emily is going to be prone to an Outer God's touch (Nyarlathotep aka the Dark Man aka the Crawling Chaos), hence the change in her cutscenes there as well as the sexism. I'm almost certain people are more violent to her because the Goat Mother views her as dangerous, too. Canrby, meanwhile, is a threat to Nyarly, not someone he's "owed." Grace seems to be "aware" of Nyarly here, and that's what SHE'S violent with Emily until later. Likely trying to see if Emily has normal reactions or not--test if she's "submitted" to Nyarly. I do fault them a bit for not making sure to include info on these concepts inside the game and expecting outside knowledge.
These concepts would work so much better and make for a more enjoyable game if they’d found a clever way to actually tell the player this. Seems like they had cool ideas but maybe needed a little longer to cook
the parts with the sexism probably should’ve been explained better ;; it’s cool in concept, especially because of the time period this took place in, but it really didn’t come off great. it just looked like everyone was bullying her for no good reason (it also especially didn’t look good that the only two black characters were ESPECIALLY hyper aggressive with her compared to carnby… sheesh)
Wait, so Jeremy was writing about being stalked by a "Dark Man?" In a game that takes influence from Lovecraft's writings? That doesn't sound too good…
Yeah, considering the Egyptian theming the Dark Man had, and that Jeremy describes him as "He of a Thousand Faces", i'm pretty sure that the Dark Man is supposed to be Nyarlathotep.
I'm just throwing it out there that the other AITD games also used to voice narrate the files you found in game to the player, often times with hammy acting. So the fact that they kept the voice narration in is a nice touch. Edit: I wish they'd done what they did in New AITD. Both stories in that game happen in the same location but you get a very different experience as Carnby or Alleen and both have more focus on an individual playstyle. Carnby is more action/combat while Alleen is more puzzle oriented and both have different story beats. This is just roughly the same game with a few changes. Why did they make Emily so unpleasant? I think they were trying to make a strong female lead but she comes off as just defiant, rude and dismissive rather than courageous and determined.
I love your reviews, and this one is no different. However, I do think you didn't cut Emily nearly as much slack as you cut the Detective. I do generally agree the Detective is a way more likeable character in general, but it is clear that in each of their respective routes, the other character is not experiencing supernatural events, and if they are, it is not nearly to the extent of each other. During the Detective's route, he honestly comes off as delusional, saying he's "almost cracking the case" while walking into closet portals only he can see, talking about ghosts, and so on. Emily hired this guy, and from her perspective, he's crazier than the people she's been interrogating. It is perfectly understandable that she would be disappointed with his performance, annoyed with his claims, and ultimately dismissive of his actions, when she is not experiencing the same events he is. In her own route, she's the one experiencing the supernatural events, and he is not. You mention how he is still understanding, but especially in the first interaction, that isn't the case. He dismisses her claims, much as she does to him in his route, except there's a hint of...well, 1920s attitude to it. The Detective might still be a likeable protagonist overall, but he's the male hired professional who's seeing his female client say she blacked out, and his reaction is to say "you're clearly upset, I understand the stress is too much for you, do you want to go back home?" which clearly frustrates Emily, because that's not what she's saying, he doesn't understand, and she knows any attempts to explain will just be taken as further evidence of her being unwell. With the context that "female hysteria" was a real diagnosis given to women in that time period, the impact of his mild antagonizing does get amplified. He might not be consciously being a sexist dick (pun intended), but the scene does become uncomfortable if you're watching it as a woman. Especially since he ends it with a dismissive tone of "that's nice that you found a clue, stay out of trouble while I solve the case, alright?" like you'd talk to a child. The game doesn't seem to call attention to this (which I think is a positive, it doesn't hammer the point in a preachy way), so it is easy to miss if you've never been in a similar situation yourself, but the scene does hit different if you have personal experience to draw upon, or if you just consider the time period and the roles of the characters in general. But with that out of the way, I love your review! I feel like you deliver the information present in the games you review better than most games do by themselves, while still commenting on the gameplay and displaying the highlights. I learn more about the games you review watching you, than I would solely by playing them or watching another YTer to a Let's Play, while still not missing on the puzzles and gameplay elements as I would if I watched another YTer do a "explaining the story of [game]" video, since you always highlight them! All in all, your videos are the best of both worlds, and I just wanted to share how much they're appreciated!
one thing I wanna say about Emily, while playing as her they did a good job of showing women being belittled and dismissed for this time period. even the scene you describe as him being helpful and showing concern for her (1:16:11) actually feels incredibly condescending. now granted, someone asking you if you've seen monsters and if you've fired your gun would leave many people going "yeah, m'kay sure", but that's not really actual concern, and it really nailed a light female rage of being constantly dismissed. she's pushy and aggressive, more so than he is, because people are less inclined to help her, and more likely to be violent or dismissive. you can just feel the "ok grandma, lets get you to bed" oozing out of every character. clearly the lil lady is just *stressed* and having *anxiety,* she's just mentally ill and in over her pretty little head. she needs to rest or go home and leave it to the men to handle. almost every woman knows the feeling of being the "woman who cried pain", and having a family history of mental illness just makes that a million times worse because every very real thing is just dismissed as you being crazy. of course she's pissed! but as well, if someone with a history of mental illness asks you if you've seen monsters around would lead most people to roll their eyes and not entirely be able to hide their underlying feeling of dismissal. but that doesn't make it any less frustrating to the victim, even when it is just their actual mental illness. but this kinda explains her dismissive and rude behavior when you're playing as him too. it's from his POV, and just like how you as a man saw that scene between them as him being helpful and concerned, I as a woman caught in his tone that it was condescending and belittling, even if he did honestly give her info first. and I'm not saying he isn't actually concerned for her there, but there's a level of misogyny underlying it, so her rudeness feels out of pocket because we're not seeing those scenes from her eyes, only his, where we're encouraged to be sympathetic to him and view her frustration as unjustified. sure, it'd have been nicer if she'd showed a little more concern for his well being, but she didn't show *none* ether. he just seemed to be getting more and more unhinged so of course she's more "wtf, I thought you were a professional" than "oh my god are you ok what happened!?". she finds him seemingly drunk and then later nearly drowning all by himself in a bath. as far as she sees he's seemingly just faffing around and chasing ghosts and walking into wardrobes to sulk while she's left to do all the work she's literally paying him to do. her being pissed off and less than friendly and concerned feels completely natural to me. all in all I think it was really well done, and I'm glad I got to experience it here first : )
Aren't you tired of being a professional victim?? Let's look at the actual plot, the logical conclusion is that the detective is on drugs or drunk in his story, as he is found on the ground or unconscious randomly by Emily, which explains why he's hallucinating monsters and weird places. Meanwhile, Emily doesn't have any excuse for why she's seeing strange things in her story, but she has both a grandfather and an uncle with mental illness, at least to the other characters, and is found alone in a room talking to herself while looking at a wall in the dark. You can't seriously talk like their situation is the same. And that is before talking about why they are there, Emily is a random civilian who is family with one of the patients who has never been there before, as nobody recognises her, while Barnaby is literally a detective doing his job. Mind you, he has solved cases in the past while Emily shouldn't even be snooping around. Finally, let's talk about your bullshit "misogyny". A detective finds his client talking alone to herself, asking him about monsters and if he shoots his gun at somebody. He has a pretty good suspicion that the place is dangerous, as there are other missing persons, and there is a literal cult. He knows that she has a family story of mental illness and that she's acting strange so he asks her to leave, even offering to take her to a safe place himself and that he'll still look for her uncle. And you find this wrong just because he is a man and she is a woman??? Even if you change the sexes the female detective should tell the male client to leave as the place is dangerous and he looks like he's having a hard time keeping it together. You have a serious case of projection or narcissism, It doesn't matter that Emily is a woman, she sounds insane to anybody who hears her and she's in danger just because everyone except for Carnby could try to kill her. Please pay attention to what the story is actually saying and not what you think it's saying, it's pretty obvious that you're seeing what you want to see.
@@p.e.4440this is the funniest reply I think I've ever gotten. I didn't need you to prove my point in the funniest way possible, but I'm so glad you did
While I completely agree with you and your points all make sense, that still doesn’t keep her from coming across as unpleasant. While it is a very accurate portrayal of how women were treated back then and how they had to act to get respect, it still doesn’t make her a likable character, and it hurts her character in the long run.
@@Pikaman20008oh I never said it made her likable, just that it's accurate and her general unpleasantness is likely on purpose rather than a mistake in the writing or acting. a protagonist doesn't have to be likable to the audience to tell her story well, but being unlikable does a lot of subtle heavy lifting regarding what kind of person her time period and experiences have made her into. I think their biggest flaw in this writing for this is not leaning into it even more and making it a bit more blatant or actually show it more so the entire audience can develop more sympathy for her and her actions and better understand her as a person, rather than leaving it to only some of the playerbase to be able to recognize and fill in the blanks.
I disagree that the elevator scene with Emily is worse. It different because her relationship with the Dark Man, Nyarlathotep, is different than Carnby's. Emily is a Hartwood...she belongs to the Dark Man. She is called to him, her whole family is. He is trying to sneak up on her, worm his way in, become established in her mind before she has any knowledge of it. She is a vessel, that's why she is drawn toward him instead of compelled to hurt herself. The only reason it failed is because of Jorge calling after her. Carnby is just an obstacle for Nyarlathotep. He's a plaything for a being so ancient and evil that it can barely be comprehended, and is almost lost to gibbering madness at even the smallest contact. Why would their interactions with the Dark Man be the same when their relationships to him are completely different?
Usually I watch the spoiler section on games no problem, but watching this has made me REALLY want to discover the ending for myself. So SORRY, but I will return after I have. What i have watch has been a FANTASTIC video Ben and thank you for showing me this game. Have a great rest of your day!
I love how Jeremy says Frédérick needed him to die 30 years ago to make the story happen right. Since Jeremy's death is the catalyst for the story of the original Alone in the Dark, made by Frédérick Raynal
I can't help feeling like we were a little robbed storywise. I feel like it would of been really rad for emily to go through jeremy's madness and such, since duh, its his niece-- but then carnaby do the detective thing and discover the cult and deal with his own paranormal happenings in the "real world". all in all another beautiful video!
I mean it makes sense. Nyarlathotep is the one that brings them into our reality. By breaking the contract with Jeremy he ensured that they'd sacrifice the kid to Shub'niggurath, calling forth the mother of a thousand young. *also, probably a keyboard typo but it is Hastur.
@TheDoc_K granted, in the limited knowledge we have about it, it only goes after whoever has it's pendant. There is precedent for a game like that in Amnesia the dark descent, maybe Amnesia 2 but definitely in the Claire A scenario in RE2.
Maybe Batiste tried to kill Emily because he thought that she was a part of Jeremy’s mind? And then he understood that she is real and stopped. But in the Carnby route he didn’t know him so he thought he was a real person.
I’m pretty sure the interactions are vastly different between the two specifically because the shadow man is only interested in the heartwoods The detective is only getting in the way of his plans, so he treats him a lot differently than Emily
And on the other hand the people of the cult are way more aggressive towards the people of the cult because she is perceived as a threat by they're dark god
I think Ben is the only creator that can make an hour long video that I will actively sit and watch throughout the entire video. Other videos that long I will have on in the background while doing something else but there is something about Ben's video style and commentary that really is engaging. Ben if you read this thank you for the amazing content
This feels like a, uh, Scarlet-Violet scenario: really amazing game, but the bugs are prominent enough that they might overshadow the actual merits of the game. For both this and SV, I hope they’re remembered for the good of the actual game and not their technical issues.
Honestly,given the internet,both those games are gonna be remembered as glitchy mess rather than what the story was trying to convey,wich is a shame because I really liked SV
I love the fact that Jeremy refers to Frederick which is the game developer of the original as well as referencing that his death in the original (30 years ago) is what made the character go to mansion. It makes me think that the original is still canon as well this remake!
Also I think the reason why both characters say they've been here awhile is that they're referencing the original as Jeremy constantly mentions he should be dead and that the story isn't going how it was supposed to. It looks like the characters have some sort of recognition (probably due to both having experience with the supernatural) that they've done this before
I wasn't expecting this game to have this much difference compared to the original, even though it makes sense. It's almost like you're playing a completely different game while still having it feel like the original Alone in the Dark at certain points.
41:48 So I played this part today. Instead of ignoring him, I tried to shoot him just to see what would happen and then after the first shot, Carnby actually started to aim the gun at himself So i had to stop looking at him
I'm currently watching a playthrough of Alone in the Dark by TheRadBrad. He's the first gaming youtuber that I watched back then, so it's fitting for me to watch him play a remake of the first ever Survival Horror game.
I was pretty surprised when actual Lovecraftian entities started showing up. Not just lovecraftian inspiration, but actual canon things Nyarlathotep and Shub-Niggurath were NOT my first guess to "what's the big bad evil thing of this game gonna be". Though I do guess that last boss was a Dark Young? In any case I'm going to have to look at this game again but throught the lovecraft lens
The audio gets weird around the 1:19:00 mark, as if it were out through an old radio. Not just for the game, but for your mic as well. Didn't know if you were aware
Alone in the Ben, Again, Ben, you always pop out these fine videos, ive been watching you since you had only 100k subs or less(probably less), and you're one of the most entertaining youtubers out there who don't have to make exaggerated adhd fueled editing just to make it enjoyable with overall high quality aswell, thank you on another note, notice how the Carnby's clothes slowly become dirtier as time goes on? it reminds me alot of Spec ops: The Line
I will say that there was very little lag on the ps5 version, leading to smoother transitions between realities. Edit: There's a really cool touch for when your chased by the Dark Man, if you try to aim your gun at him you point the gun at your own head instead.
Let's goooooo! I was hoping you'd cover this game. Funny enough the original Alone in the Dark vid was how I found your channel, it was listed in my recommended and I thought "what the hell? I'll watch it, thumbnail looks cool" safe to say I've been hooked on your channel since 😁 Can't wait for whatever you do next 👌
What it feels like, is that they may have originally planned to have you play as carnby through most of the game, but during select sections play as heartwood. Might explain some of the terrible glitches but I don't have game coding experiance to back up that claim.
When you noted the differences in character design at the beginning, it made me realize mustached protagonists are practically nonexistent in modern games. Besides character creation, can you name a single game in the last ten years that has a mustache? I'm sure there are indie games with them, but I can't recall any at all off the top of my head.
Gonna be honest, they DEFINITELY need to put Grace into another psych ward b/c something is wrong with that kid. Like I'm pretty sure if this game has a sequel the plot is gonna be her trying to start another cult when she's older or something.
I feel like I should've known about a new alone in the dark. Well I'm glad I was able to find out here, I really liked your video on the old one so this is a treat after a really long day. Great video by the way
Ben, this made me realize. I think I would enjoy seeing you play the dark pictures anthology series. I dont know if you would enjoy it, but I know I would enjoy seeing you play it.
Funny enough I played as Emily first and I gotta say, I don't agree with your perception of her. What you say was aggressive I saw as defensive and frustrated. She's gone though some brutal times, trying to work though her families fractured existence. and living with the guilt of her fiance's death. I fully understood where she was coming from and really enjoyed my time with the game, I'm looking forward to my next playthough xxx
i recently played ghost trick because i wanted to watch ur video on it but i heard it was rlly good, so i played it first. i LOVE that i can hear and recognize the soundtrack in this video. You’re quickly becoming my favorite watch-while-drawing youtuber 😋😋
1:14:13 that previous cutscene while is 'not as good' as Carnby, it makes more sense if you take it as fact that the Hartwood Curse is something due to Nyarlathotep's Influence of her family. The Black Pharaoh wants Carnby dead for meddling in is affairs. He wants Emily alive due to whatever history he has with her family, coming for their minds as they get older. This game really glosses over the idea that the Hartwoods are connected to an Outer God like Nyarlathotep... but then again just from your video i have no idea what the cult hoped to achieve by invoking Shub-Niggurath either...
I think maybe the reason Emily's interactions with the Dark Man are so anticlimactic most of the time can be explained by Jeremy's retelling of his first interaction with the Dark Man. Even though he could see him, he was not the current target so he was overlooked for his father instead. In the current time of the game, Jeremy is the target and Emily has likely only been marked like Jeremy had been before. I think this might also be why her interactions with Baptiste and Lottie were much more aggressive, since her scenes with the Dark Man didn't have much tension :)
You should do a long form video of the Danganronpa games, I know it’s like super different than what you usually cover but I love your videos and how you speak about the games you cover ! It would be really cool to see
Seems pretty weird that you just skipped over the fact that in the ending sequence, the psychologist is what's represented as the Dark Man. I saw a few references in the cutscenes shown to this too, when the detective is describing the pact of the Dark Man. This along with the fact that what they have to go through is reliving repressed and traumatic memories - and that the key to stopping things was the psychologist's "last resort" - paints a more complete story and another interesting interpretation... It's possible that none of it happened after all. That it truly was psychosis. That what they were experiencing was reflections of their investigation and the psychologist trying to get them to open up and accept what happened to them. The Dark Man eventually gets to the Heartwoods in suicide because they can't accept things, and/or they become so lost in them that they do what lady Heartwood tried to do to escape it. Even the ritual could be entirely symbolic if you stretch it. If everyone thinks something terrible will happen if things don't go a certain way, they'll react when it doesn't go that way. Even if nothing terrible is actually happening. The feast appears to be a routine, one even the psychologist participates in. Routines being disturbed can seriously mess with people. It's possible the deaths were a result of the delusional chaos rather than the tree coming alive, and any stragglers caught as the place burnt. Of course, actually taking the story this way is a bit silly. It's clearly supposed to be more "possible interpretation" than what actually happened. I think it's important, though, for those connections to be made, and adds a lot to the weight of the story.
absolutely exquisite video! the gameplay and information is so well organized and easily digestible- an impressive feat for a video an hour and a half long. as someone who has watched the Alone in the Dark remakes fall to obscurity (because let's be honest, they were terrible lol), it's nice to see a high quality in-depth video on a pretty good reimagining. not to mention the small snippets in-between the commentary where your actual reactions to the game are shown; those snippets make your gaming experience feel more real and personal. keep up the great work! and great thumbnail art as per usual! (commenting to boost both morale and algorithm)
From what the characters say, the Black Goat of the Woods is Shab-Niggurat, Lovecraftian goddess, also known as The Goat with Thousand Young. The Black Man is Nyarlathotep, the Emissary of the cosmic gods, shapeshifter and famous for interacting the most with humanity
It personally feels like there was supposed to be a more meaningful split between the narratives, but something in development lead to the cult side of the story becoming an underdeveloped subplot that only comes into effect at the end of the game cuz they wanted to use the tree boss fight from the first game. I feel like it wouldn't have been hard to actually make it work but perhaps a majority of the cult plot had to be scrapped for time constraints or something. I could easily see the cult plot being Edward's story as he has no relation to Jeremy.
Wow, that's the coolest Nyarlathotep story I've seen in a long while. Possibly ever, really. And I really like the whole "A totally *different* mythos story was going on while The PC was busy running around Jeremy's mind and going crazy" thing. Although I wish there was a way to play through that totally different story! I'll definitely buy this if they debug it.
I like how Nyarlathothep (Crawling Chaos) and Shub-Niggurath (The Black Goat of Woods) were mentioned And then never appeared (unless Dark Man is Nyarlathothep, which would make 100% sense given how he is called from time to time; you can't convince me that that living piece of wood is The Blacm Goat though).
Yes, the dark man is one of nyarlathoteps forms, the Pharaoh. And yes, the tree became one of the usual depictions of an avatar of shub niggurath. Look up some comparison images, it's quite good actually. I'm also convinced that the girl is also one of the pharaohs forms. Or at least devoted to him.
I believe the point of Grace being more aggressive towards emily could have very well been her acting out on her own trauma, either reacting like Emily was her mother, or treating Emily how her mother treated her. "Learn your place, little girl" [paraphrased] definitely sounds more like a child repeating something they've heard from an adult over them comimg up with it on the spot to be degrading.
I actually kinda like the change with Grace. I think it's actually a bit telling of how the women are treated in the hospital Grace is probably echoing behavior and words said to her, and it's stated her mother treated her poorly and didn't actually care about her It makes sense that all these sentiments are only shown when you play as Emily, because Emily is a woman. Not to mention the Doctor calling Emily a spinster at one point, it's clear that women aren't quite seen as equals to men at all. Also also, Grace has literally been manipulated into a cult, it makes sense that all these ideals are reflected through her since she's the most vulnerable. That's jst my view on it though :]
I kept getting my attention snagged on Jeremy's claims that 'he was supposed to die' and how he needed to/didn't set up 'the story' properly. I was kinda hoping the horror would end up going meta by making that the big twist, and exploring how a defiance of fate that intense could bend reality and the perceptions of those around you. But instead it was all just "whoops, the Lovecraftian gods made me/us do it!" Not even "the Lovecraftian gods didn't approve of my Life fanfiction and now they're spamming my comments section with eldritch madness." For shame.
This game seems great, but my issue with it is honestly an issue I have with a lot of video game remakes. It doesn’t feel much like a remake at all, it feels entirely different. This isn’t a retelling of the original game, it’s entirely different. Don’t call it a remake or a retelling at that point.
Might have different opinon after playing game, but I do get kinda feeling you were bit too harsh on Emily? Like she didn't seem that pushy or mean from what you showed, so it came across as kinda double standards thing where someone else with exact same personality and you would be more sympathetic towards them because you got bad first impression on Emily and that stuck. That said, I have tendency I analyze to seperate what seems to be intended characterization and what seems to be writing problems (in this case, it feels like devs didn't want to recycle same cutscene and same lines for two different playable characters so as result of changing lines one version of conversation in either version was weaker than others or got something important lost in progress. Like there seems to have been intention for Emily to share her own investigation with detective like he does on her route, but that never happens it seems making her come across as unhelpful in one route.)
I agree with you, Emily was pretty reasonable if you take into account the things she's going through and the fact that they're not equals - she hired him, and there is no expectation from her to be nice to him. Furthermore she had received a letter from her uncle saying he was being treated badly, I would be abrasive too if I would go to check on a relative because of this.
After the last few Alone In The Dark stinkers, we really needed this game. You actually get a chance to be alone in the dark for one. I still am confused on the story as a whole, kinda hoping there might be an update in the future where Edward and Emily can team up together or something and share the clues they find.
